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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961800">Always Know Where You Are</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANTchan/pseuds/ANTchan'>ANTchan</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Aro-Ace Clint Barton, Aromantic Natasha Romanov, Avengers Feels, Barely Canon Compliant, Canon Divergence - Avengers (2012), Character Study, Deaf Clint Barton, Endgame said alt-2012 timeline and I said GIMME, Howard Stark Lives, Maria Stark Lives, Minor Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Multi, Post-Avengers (2012), Pre-Relationship, Team as Family, The Avengers Need a Hug</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 10:28:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>9,316</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961800</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ANTchan/pseuds/ANTchan</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Sometimes it's got to hurt before you feel.</i><br/> <br/>This thing, this team, shouldn't work. The reasons why could fill an entire room: They're too volatile. They're too used to working solo. They're from different worlds, some of them literally. </p><p>Then the Battle of New York happens and changes everything.</p><p>Or,</p><p>We're going way back to 2012 and the era of "How the Avengers became a team" fics.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Clint Barton &amp; Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton &amp; Phil Coulson, Steve Rogers/Tony Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>40</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Always Know Where You Are</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So this is a fic that I actually tried to write... way back in 2012. When the golden age of "how the Avengers came to live in Avengers Tower" fics were the thing and the MCU fandom was new and shiny. And then I never posted it and just left it to sit in my drafts folder for eight years. But Endgame said Post-Avengers aus were INCREDIBLY RELEVANT again, so I pulled this baby out of the depths of my hard drive and after some dusting off and some rewriting, here we are!</p><p>
  <strike>I'm only slightly terrified.</strike>
</p><p>This fic will be pretty gen, but the series as a whole is going to be Stony. But it's been fun just to dig into all of their POVs for each chapter!</p><p>A special thank you to swisstea and DMGingerSnaps on the <a href="https://discord.gg/jtXcc3n">Stuckony discord server</a> for beta'ing this chapter! And my extra special undying gratitude to <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueshadows">rogueshadows</a>, <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wiggle/pseuds/Wiggle%22">Wiggle</a>, and <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/newtypeshadow">newtypeshadow</a> for being my dearest fic friends and cheering my on! I love you guys!</p><p>The title for this fic is taken from "Always Know Where You Are" by Johnny Rezznik</p><p>
  <i>It's good to see the sun and feel this place,<br/>this place I never thought would feel like home.</i>
</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>--------------------1---------------------</p><p>
  <em>BEFORE</em>
</p><p>The moment Steve crashes through the wall of his "recovery room" like it's made of paper is the moment that his perception of reality fractures. The benign four walls are a lie, a mask for the empty, gray room beyond. And Steve is no stranger to stage work or the magic that Hollywood can produce with a backdrop and some clever use of perspective, but this is…</p><p>The recovery room and the fake New York beyond had seemed just this side of real, even to his serum-enhanced senses.</p><p>What the hell is happening?</p><p>"Captain Rogers!"</p><p>The imposter nurse is climbing over the guard Steve had tossed through the false wall. The gentle, lilting tone that had meant to soothe him is gone now. Her voice holds a firm command in its place, already bringing up a small radio to her mouth as Steve turns and bolts.</p><p>"Code thirteen! All agents, code thirteen!"</p><p>Her words echo from intercom speakers above him as Steve bursts from the soundstage. When he hurdles into the room lined with control panels and glowing screens - bright, <em>too bright</em> - a uniformed man at the desk whirls on him. The insignia on his chest is a stylized eagle with its wings spread wide. It’s reminiscent of the SSR insignia, the one stamped across Steve’s t-shirt, but wrong. It’s all wrong.</p><p>The man’s face twists in alarm, but not aggression. “Captain Rogers, I need you to stand down,” he says quickly. Despite his words, his hand still hovers over his belt, reaching for the weapon strapped there. Steve feints left, grasps the man’s wrist before he can even draw his weapon, and swings him into the control panel on his way out the door. </p><p>The world beyond is a cavernous hallway of gleaming stone and metal, windows reaching up and up and <em>up</em>, and where men and women in strangely designed suits lurch away from him as he skids into the hall. His eyes track frantically around the hall for the quickest escape, his body choosing a path before his mind finishes cataloguing the possibilities. Their stares follow after him the whole way down the hall, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Steve weaves between bystanders as the thump of heavy boots echo behind him. He makes it to an intersection of another hall, only to find more men in black uniforms bearing down on him. </p><p>Run or confront them? Steve glances at the paths on all sides, his heart sinking to see that more uniformed soldiers are taking up positions on three sides of him. Fight, or flee? Those wide, unnaturally tall windows are behind him, essentially a wall of glass. If he can make a run for it, he could…</p><p>“Captain Rogers,” one of the soldiers calls to him. They’re keeping their distance, hovering out of his reach in case Steve makes a move to attack. “We mean you no harm.”</p><p>His jaw clenches. “Funny. It doesn’t feel that way.” His muscles coil, seconds away from springing into action - there’s a courtyard outside those windows, a balcony maybe? He has no idea what floor he’s on, how far the drop is to the ground below, but he can deal with that once he gets there--</p><p>“Awake for five damn minutes, and you’re already putting this building on red alert. Seriously, Rogers?”</p><p>Steve jolts and almost drops his guard. Almost turns his back on the threat to the man who’s stepped between him and the glass wall to freedom. The sly drawl is achingly familiar, and so is the faint, crooked smile that it comes from. </p><p>But the face is different, lines around the man’s mouth and eyes, the furrow in his brow carved deep with the passage of time. The jet black hair from Steve’s memory has gone gray now, streaks of white at the temples. The wicked spark in his eyes is different too. Brittle, watchful.</p><p>But Steve <em>knows him.</em></p><p>“Howard?” </p><p>“Sorry I didn’t get here faster, Steve,” his old friend - <em>old, older, how many years has passed, how long has it been since Steve crashed into the Arctic</em> - says.</p><p>“You’re…” A new horror creeps into his heart. “Howard, what?”</p><p>“It’s a lot, I know. We can talk about it, if we all can just relax.” Howard takes half a step to one side, peering at the soldiers who are still holding position. “At ease, then. Go on.”</p><p>No one moves.</p><p>“Mister Stark, I thought I told you to stay out of this.” A new voice reverberates around them. The soldiers ahead of Steve step smoothly aside, allowing an imposing man in all black to step through. Steve takes in the scarred face and the patch over one eye, the way his uniform coat billows out around him, and the unflinching way he strides forward.</p><p>“Considering Steve here was about three seconds from going out that window, you should be thanking me.” Howard gestures at the man. “Steve, this is Nick Fury, Director of this circus. Fury, Steve.”</p><p>“Captain,” Fury greets, coming to join the two of them. Steve keeps his distance. The soldiers have lowered their weapons, but not their guard. “I’m sorry for that show back there. We thought it was best to ease you in slowly.”</p><p>Howard scoffs. “Fat lot of good that did. We told you--”</p><p>“The last I checked, Mister Stark, you’re not the Director of this organization. And neither is she.”</p><p>“She?” Steve asks.</p><p>Fury gives him an unreadable glance, and Howard smiles, but doesn’t answer. “It is our decision how best to bring Captain Rogers back up to speed,” Fury continues. “There was no telling what state you would be in when you woke up, Cap.”</p><p>The nickname rankles him. The familiar moniker sounds wrong coming from a man that Steve has never met in his life. He begins to speak, only for Howard to cut in over him, his words whipcord sharp: “What the hell made you think faking a New York hospital from back then was going to work any better? All you did was make him run!”</p><p>“Stark, this is not the time.”</p><p>“If you would’ve let us in, we could have explained--”</p><p>“<em>Howard,</em>” Steve interrupts, causing both of them to fall silent. His mouth is dry as he struggles to ask: “Tell me what?”</p><p>If he’s honest, he already knows the answer before it’s given to him. His eyes are locked on Howard’s aging face, the way his senses tune in to how everything in this building seems to <em>buzz</em> and <em>thrum</em> in a way nothing else he’s encountered.</p><p>(No, HYDRA’s bases hummed this way too. But Howard is here and surely… surely…)</p><p>So it’s not a surprise when Fury looks at him with a solemn, faintly sympathetic eye and says, “You’ve been asleep, Cap. For almost seventy years.” It still doesn’t stop Steve’s stomach from dropping through the floor. Knowing it was coming doesn’t lessen the blow. He thinks he might parrot the word “Seventy…” in a voice that doesn’t sound at all like his own. Howard has moved closer, hovering at his side without touching him. </p><p>Steve peers around at the hall, searching for something, anything that would ground him in reality. Or in a reality that makes more sense than <em>this. </em>He can’t conjure up the words to describe how unmoored he feels. Can’t think of anything other than the wordless scream that clogs his throat. It feels quite suddenly like he’s back in that plane, back in the Valkyrie with the water rushing in around him. Biting. Cold. Suffocating.</p><p>“...see her. You’ll have him back by the end of the day, Fury, don’t get your pants in a twist.”</p><p>Howard’s voice comes to him just over the muffled hush of his own thoughts. And then he’s being guided away, a hand at his arm pulling him down the hall. No one follows them this time. Steve gazes at the walls, at the bland art on them as they pass, numbly letting Howard lead him deeper into the building.</p><p>“--shit, we probably should’ve gotten you some shoes first. Least they gave you socks this time, or else you coulda been running around New York in with bare feet. Again.”</p><p>Steve focuses back in on Howard’s voice, blinking as he comes out of his daze. “It’s really been seventy years?” he says without warning.</p><p>His friend’s eyes swivel around to look at him. “Sixty-six, to be exact.”</p><p>Steve considers this, with a numb kind of hysteria. “You look good for ninety-four, Howard.”</p><p>“Are you calling me <em>old</em>, Rogers?” Howard grumbles back at him, his eyes narrowing. “Don’t start that shit with me. I gave you that scientifically perfect body!”</p><p>“You don’t look a day over sixty, or a worn down fifty.”</p><p>“Damn straight,” he huffs. “Like a fine wine. Now come on. We’re almost there.”</p><p>They cut down another hallway - how big is this building? Steve mentally retraces their steps. “What is this place? Where are we going?”</p><p>“This is the Manhattan facility for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division.” His confusion over the name is so palpable that Howard smirks. “<em>SHIELD. Someone</em> was adamant that our name spelled out SHIELD. And you’ve got a date, Steve.”</p><p>“I’ve what?”</p><p>He gets his answer a few moments later, as they cut through a door, through two rooms, and reach a courtyard secluded deep in the building. Steve’s completely lost track of their orientation by the time they get there. The small courtyard is lined with wide stones under their feet, only big enough for a few small tables and a curved bench in one corner. But there’s fresh air and sunlight here. And…</p><p>She’s here.</p><p>As they enter, the lone woman in the courtyard turns in her seat, and Steve would recognize those dark eyes and the wry curve of her red painted mouth anywhere. Her hair is gunmetal silver now, lines around her eyes, a softness to the shape of her face. But she’s steady as she moves to stand tall and proud, just as she always has.</p><p>“Peggy?” he breathes.</p><p>She smiles. She’s still using that same shade of red lipstick. “You’re late, Captain.”</p><p>Steve must still be in shock, because he only wants to laugh. He’s across the courtyard and dragging Peggy into a hug before he can stop himself, her hands small and comforting against his back, clutching him just as close. There are tears on her cheeks when he finally releases her, wet spots of tears pressed into his shoulder. He turns, his mind finally catching up enough to pull Howard into a hug as well. The man goes stiff against him, awkwardly patting at Steve’s shoulders. But even his eyes are a little glassy when Steve pulls away.</p><p>And then… they talk. They sit in the courtyard and talk for what feels like hours and no time at all.</p><p>They talk about what happened after the war, that the Valkyrie had been lost in the Arctic with Steve inside it, that the Allies won, and that Steve is credited with having a major part in that victory. He’s a part of history now. A distant relic. Hell, they teach kids about him in <em>school</em>. (<em>‘Why?’ </em>he wants to shout. Why? He’s not any more important than any of the thousands of soldiers who died alongside him.)</p><p>They talk about the SSR and SHIELD. How <em>Peggy</em> and <em>Howard</em> and Colonel Phillips and all of the Howlies founded this organization to carry on the work that they (“That <em>you,</em> Steve,” Peggy clarifies) began during the war. <em>SHIELD.</em> They’ve tried to protect the world and they’ve named it <em>SHIELD</em>. The magnitude of that curls tight under his ribs.</p><p>They try to talk about Steve’s future, about how he can <em>reintegrate</em>, but it’s the only subject of conversation that Steve shuts down. It’s too soon. If Steve is forced to stop and think about what he’s going to do next, he’s going to break apart. Focusing on the two of them is easier.</p><p>And they let him get away with it.</p><p>He asks Howard and Peggy about what he’s missed instead, listens as Peggy tells him about the family she’s gained after losing him. About Edwin and Ana Jarvis. About Angie. About her husband Daniel, their long marriage, his death a decade ago, their children. <em>Their grandchildren.</em> He listens to Howard talk about his wife and his son, halting, almost flippant words about a woman so kind that it hurts and a son who’s changing himself and the world along with him. There’s a pride that shines in his eyes, and it speaks the words that Howard seems almost embarrassed to say out loud.</p><p>And it hurts, it <em>hurts</em> to listen, to hear about the things he’s blinked and somehow missed. The family he never got to have, the children of his friends that he never got to watch grow up. But Steve wants to hear them. He <em>needs</em> to hear them.</p><p>At the end of it, Peggy reaches into the briefcase sitting beside her feet, and takes out a square of clear glass that lights up in vibrant color when she taps it with the tip of her finger. Steve watches in fascination as she taps a few more times at the screen, pressing images and opening up new screens that Steve has absolutely no context for. But on the back of the frame, there is a bold insignia that reads: <em>STARK</em>.</p><p>“Did you make this?” he asks Howard, leaning a little farther to better look at what Peggy’s doing. This level of technology is so far removed from Steve’s understanding that it feels like magic, even though he knows otherwise. </p><p>On his other side, Howard grins. “My son.” And there’s that pride back, welling up under the two words before Howard reins it back in. “Well, he didn’t invent the basis of it - they’ve been around for years. But he’s revolutionized them.”</p><p>“What’s it do?”</p><p>Peggy chuckles gently. “Far more than I can even attempt to explain. If you want a teacher on technology these days, it won’t be me.”</p><p>At this, Howard leans in. “Oh no,” Steve says, “it’s not going to be you either. I want to know what it does, not engineering theory.”</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>“You do tend to talk over people, Howard,” Peggy agrees. The spark in her eyes gives Steve a startling moment of dissonance; the expression is the same as the last he saw her, both hours and a lifetime ago. Peggy passes the device into his hands. “Tap on the screen here,” she instructs.</p><p>“Alright…” He obeys, holding the square of metal and... plastic? in both hands. At a gentle touch, the screen changes. Familiar faces look back at him from the screen, each image labelled: <em>Monty. Morita. Dernier. Gabe. Dum-Dum. Howard. Peggy.</em></p><p>“One of the things it can do,” Peggy explains, “is deliver messages. Not everyone could be here today, since we weren’t sure when you were going to wake up. But we recorded messages for you.”</p><p>Messages? No, messages are letters, telegrams from the front, hasty notes of <em>don’t forget this, Captain </em>or <em>Christ, Steve, eat something </em>scrawled on any bit of available paper. This is…</p><p>This is Monty berating him for thinking it was <em>“a bloody great idea to crash a plane into the ocean without giving us the coordinates,”</em> his eyes shining with tears and fierce affection. This is Morita walking Steve through the garden he’s so carefully cultivated and showing Steve the pictures of his family that line the walls of his home. It’s Dernier dancing with his youngest daughter (a middle-aged woman now), full of smiles and laughter and speaking in rapid French. It’s Gabe with a grinning young man that he introduces as Antoine, his grandson, with smaller children running in and out of frame behind him - grandchildren, great-grandchildren. It’s Dum-Dum frowning and cursing at the screen while a laughing man of about sixty chides him gently, <em>“Tim, love, let me see. You’re holding it too close, you gotta let it focus.”</em></p><p>It’s Howard, eyes glassy with emotion on screen while the Howard sitting across from Steve resolutely doesn’t meet his eyes, recounting expeditions into the Arctic, year after hopeless year, literal decades spent in search of him. He talks until a man leans into the doorway just behind Howard’s shoulder, a little older than Steve with a frown identical to Howard’s, dark hair and expressive, gleaming brown eyes that fix on the camera. <em>“Dad--”</em> Howard’s expression goes vaguely panicked, and the message ends.</p><p>It’s Peggy sitting in a cozy room that speaks of a life lived long and lived well. There’s a photo of a little boy with a gap-toothed smile on the table at her elbow. Just looking at it makes something in Steve’s chest twist. It’s the sweetest of sorrows, happiness, and a shameful jealousy that he shoves as far down as he can manage it.</p><p>They’re all older, a little more worn, but all of them… <em>all of them</em> are alive. Healthy. Here with him. (No, not <em>all,</em> there’s still one missing, says the bone-deep ache in his chest. But that’s an impossibility. Bucky is gone.)</p><p>Steve sucks in a breath, finding that his throat has gone tight. His hands shake around the device until it’s gently pulled away from him. He wants to snatch it back, to watch each message over and over again until the ache just under his ribs eases. Peggy lays a hand on his shoulder, waiting patiently until he can find the strength to draw himself back up. “They… they all look good. Really good?” he says lamely, an unspoken question lodged in his throat. How are they with him? How did they all make it? </p><p>Peggy and Howard share a glance across the table, before Peggy turns to him with a small, melancholy smile.</p><p>“We’ve been waiting for you, darling.”</p><p>--------------------2---------------------</p><p>
  <em>BATTLE OF NEW YORK</em>
</p><p>An army. From outer space.</p><p>The words keep running themselves round and round in Steve’s mind, whenever they’re not drowned out by the adrenaline.</p><p>
  <em>An army. From outer space.</em>
</p><p>“Barton, I need eyes on the west perimeter,” he calls, gritting his teeth as he ducks under another alien taking a swing at him. Steve brings up the shield, wedging under the carapace where any other creature’s ribs would be, using his momentum to send it tumbling over him and off the high bridge to the street below.</p><p>There’s a crackle of sound over the comm, the background cacophony of alien snarls and crashes that, to unenhanced senses, might fade into the backdrop. To Steve, however, it’s as jarring as a burst of feedback right into his ears and he winces. <em>“I got vantage as far west as 7th, Cap. Hostiles as far as 6th.”</em></p><p><em>“The flying monkeys are as far south as Bleecker Street,”</em> Stark cuts in before Steve can respond. Unlike Barton’s comm, Stark’s is almost unnaturally quiet, his voice being the only thing to come through.  If they’re going to have a go at this whole team thing, Steve privately vows, then they’re going to let Stark outfit them with his vastly superior comm system. It won’t be difficult to convince him, not with that ego and the seeming desire he has to thwart SHIELD at every turn. <em>“They’re turning tail whenever they get close. Want me to--”</em></p><p>“Don’t break the perimeter!” Steve twists his body, hurling the shield ahead of him and kicking a nearby hostile into a parked car as it goes ricocheting away. “Stark, do not engage. We’ve still got civilians that need to be evacuated on the west perimeter.”</p><p>
  <em>“It’ll take two shakes--”</em>
</p><p>“Stark! I need you here!” He can’t help that he snaps, too busy finishing off a squadron of the carapaced aliens to register Stark’s heavy silence until a moment later.</p><p>
  <em>“On my way, Cap.”</em>
</p><p>Steve breathes a sigh of relief. “Appreciated.” He lifts a hand to catch the shield, the last of the aliens having fallen. Finding himself momentarily alone, Steve sucks in a deep breath, flinching when it strains his ribs. Being thrown three storeys out a window and into a parked car hadn’t helped his healing injuries much. It’s only a few moments of respite, just enough to catch his breath for what feels like the first time in hours. (Months. In months.) “Does anyone have eyes on Thor?” he says eventually.</p><p>It’s Agent Romanov’s clear, crisp voice that answers him. <em>“I’ve got eyes on him. Just outside of Madison Square Park.”</em></p><p>“Can you get to him, Romanov? Tell him to take Hulk and head south, we need to start pushing that perimeter back to the evacuated zone.”</p><p>
  <em>“I’ll tell him, but it’s anyone’s guess if the Hulk will listen to him.”</em>
</p><p><em>“You’d be surprised,”</em> Stark drawls over the comm. <em>“He’s finally strutting. Just have Thor point him in the direction of the next wave and challenge him to who can stomp the most aliens.”</em></p><p>Barton laughs. <em>“Tell ‘em to keep in view, I can keep score from up here.”</em></p><p><em>Cut the chatter</em>, is his first instinct. And it’s not something bitter that rises in him but something nostalgic, remembering exactly how many times he’d had to say those exact words to the Howlies when they wouldn’t stop bickering during a mission.</p><p>The simple battlefield exchange feels familiar. Freeing. And after the catastrophe of their meeting on the Helicarrier, it finally feels like Steve has a team behind him again.</p><p>Screams and the sound of gunfire on the next street over have Steve breaking out into a run. The rush of battle takes over, taking in the civilians crouching behind the wreckage of a car and the police officer (familiar, one of the men Steve had spoken to at the start of the battle) firing at a group of approaching aliens to draw their attention. As Steve skids around the corner, the officer’s gun clicks uselessly, the man’s eyes widening in horror as he ducks back behind the rubble on the street.</p><p>He hurls the shield forward just as the officer dives from cover, scrambling into the line of fire towards one of the alien bodies nearby. The shield cracks into two of them, and Steve rushes forward to grasp the staff-like weapon of the third attacker, forcing the shot to go wide. </p><p>Steve dispatches them quickly as the shield rebounds to him, twisting to aim the weapon at two of the other creatures and firing at the same time he snaps the neck of the snarling alien in his grip. The last of the alien squadron goes down with an ear-piercing shriek - engulfed in a blast of energy from behind. The police officer kneels in the rubble, breathing heavily with one of the alien weapons in his hand.</p><p>Steve steps back, eyeing the officer until he lowers the weapon. “Alright?” he asks the man, managing to sound only slightly winded.</p><p>The police officer isn’t as lucky, his words raspy as he tries to calm his breathing. “Yeah. T-Thanks.”</p><p>“Where’s the rest of your squadmates, Officer…”</p><p>The man hesitates, shifting from foot to foot. “Saunders, sir-- Captain. William Saunders.” He reaches up to take his hat off, rubbing a hand over his face, wiping the dirt and sweat from his eyes and-- <em>oh</em>. That’s why he looked familiar. The recognition comes like a punch in the gut.</p><p>The man is the spitting image of Peggy’s deceased husband.</p><p>“...just trying to get the last of the civilians clear,” William is saying. </p><p>Steve nods automatically. “Good. That’s-- you should get clear, yourself.” There’s a brief, expectant silence that falls between them, ending in Steve gesturing vaguely at the officer. “Is… how are you related to Peggy?”</p><p>“Uh, caught that, huh?” he responds, looking more than a little sheepish. “Hard not to when I look like Grandpa Daniel when he was young. Didn’t know if you would’ve looked that up, though. It’s uh… this is awkward, right? I was basically told bedtime stories about you for all of my childhood--”</p><p>Steve raises a hand, an hysterical laugh rising in his throat. “Let’s not--”</p><p>“Right! Right, sorry. Battle, aliens-- aliens? Seriously.”</p><p>“No kidding.”</p><p>The ear-piercing shriek of a flying chariot keeps Steve from continuing. It’s far, far too close, a snarling alien piloting the vehicle straight for them. Steve curses himself for letting his guard down, shouting a hoarse, “Get down!” as he pushes Officer Saunders back towards the safety of cover.</p><p>The guns at the front of the chariot burn with searing blue light. All of the muscles in Steve’s body coil, mind flickering through his options. Dive out of the way, jump forward onto the chariot, bring the shield up and take the blow? There’s no time--</p><p>The alien’s head jerks back, exploding in a shower of carapace and oozing, off-color blood. The entire chariot lists to one side as its corpse tumbles, twisting the controls, soaring past them and into the wreckage of an overturned bus. Steve brings the shield up to protect them from any flying rubble. As the street goes quiet once more, Steve gazes at the twisted heap of metal that had been bearing down on them a mere breath ago. Replaying the moment in his mind, Steve turns to the building at the far end of the road a few blocks from them, eyes tracking up and up and…</p><p>There. The faintest glint at the top of the building. </p><p>Steve brings hand up to his comm. “Barton, the Army bring any snipers with them?”</p><p>
  <em>“Snipers? Haven’t seen any. Why; you finding me some competition, Cap?”</em>
</p><p>He doesn’t answer. He just watches the far off glint of a sniper scope, wondering what kind of sniper other than Barton could hit a target moving that fast, from that distance. He raises a hand in a vague salute, only to freeze.</p><p>It feels like deja vu.</p><p>The glint in the distance flickers, almost reciprocating, and then disappears.</p><p><em>“I’m incoming, Cap,” </em>Stark’s voice breaks through his thoughts, <em>“on your four o’clock. You need me to pick you up? I’m thinking bridal carry.”</em></p><p>Steve takes a steadying breath.</p><p>Back to work.</p><p>--------------------3---------------------</p><p>
  <em>AFTER</em>
</p><p>Afterwards, Midtown is a rubble-strewn wreck, but a wreck that just… continues on. There are volunteers and emergency crews everywhere. Recovery shelters and medical stations spring up overnight, a small city surrounding the wreckage of Midtown. Steve sneaks from his temporary housing with SHIELD (the apartment they’d given him after waking up is uninhabitable at the moment, after taking a flying chariot through the building) to join them whenever he’s able. He sees the others out among the volunteers now and again: Romanov traveling from family to family in a shelter, handing out blankets and water; Doctor Banner among the medical volunteers with dark circles under his eyes; Barton entertaining a gathering of lost children; Thor, stripped of his heavy armor, helping the teams move rubble with frightening ease; Stark in dirty jeans and a t-shirt that’s ripped and dirty from hours spent down in the wreckage, pouring over blueprints of buildings and simulations of structural damage.</p><p>Steve joins the search and rescue crews, hoping that his supposedly superior abilities will be of use <em>somehow</em>, that they can make a difference to at least one person’s life in all this. He thinks that some of the volunteers recognize him from the footage that’s been circulating from the battle. But if they do, they don’t mention it other than the occasional searching look.</p><p>Steve doesn’t really sleep. But then again, it doesn’t look like the others do either.</p><p>They do what they can.</p><p>And in between that, they’re herded into debriefing after debriefing, separately and together, until it almost starts to feel like an interrogation. Which is nothing new to Steve. The hoops that higher ups force the soldiers on the ground to jump through hasn't changed all that much in the last seventy years. It’s still people who sit safely away in their neat little offices casting judgment on those who actually have to go through war and take on the consequences when, say, some oversight Security Council decides it’s better to just <em>fire a bomb at a city of eight million people</em>--</p><p>Yeah. So it might not be new to Steve, but it still pisses him off.</p><p>On top of that, there’s the weight of their own failure to deal with.</p><p>Loki is gone. Escaped. Slipped right through their damn fingers with the Tesseract. And none of them can figure out exactly how he managed it. One moment they were fine and the battle was over and in the next, Stark is collapsing in the middle of a conversation with Secretary Pierce in a room full of SHIELD special agents and Loki disappears in the chaos. </p><p>He almost made it out with the scepter as well and he’d used that guise of Steve to do it, a fact that burns like molten steel inside of Steve whenever he thinks about it. If Steve hadn’t stumbled onto him in the upper floors of Stark Tower, Loki would have gotten away with everything. </p><p>Steve doesn’t really remember what that encounter was like after the initial struggle, a fact that he’s repeated ad nauseum in his debriefings (<em>interrogations</em>) with SHIELD overseers. He remembers getting Loki to the ground and then… nothing.</p><p>The scepter was recovered in the end, but the sting to his pride hasn’t quite faded yet.</p><p>Which is why Steve sits in his temporary suite in SHIELD’s barracks, a place even more barren of personal effects than his apartment had been, and pours over footage from the battle. Anything and everything he can get his hands on, from news sites or SHIELD’s security database or the broken up footage from Stark’s security cameras (which had helpfully appeared in an encrypted file in his email). Anything Steve could get his hands on to find a lead, to find <em>something. </em>To feel like he’s doing <em>something.</em></p><p>Around the time Steve realizes he’s been trawling through YouTube for more than an hour is the time he admits that he might have gone too deep. </p><p>The video sharing site had been a part of Steve’s extensive, <em>exhaustive</em> tutoring on the general state of the modern world and the use of the internet. Be careful what you click on, he’d been told, do not take things said in these videos as truth without scrutiny, and for the love of god <em>do not read or respond to video comments</em>. The list went on and on. Mostly, Steve had ignored it, just like he had most of the finer points of supposed “modern” life.</p><p>Surprisingly, though, it seems to be a perfect place to watch cell phone footage from people on the streets of New York. There’s… a lot of gruesome things there, either in videos that have been barely blurred to get past the site’s content programming or in those that are raw, horrifying, and will be taken down within the hour. Steve is no stranger to the kinds of things he sees in those videos - he’s been to <em>war</em>. Seen exactly what war does when unleashed on innocent populations. But that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t leave his hands shaking.</p><p>It’s how he comes across the video titled in all caps: <em>HOWLING COMMANDOS WASTE ALIENS IN NYC.</em></p><p>Steve straightens up from where he’s been sitting slouched on his tiny bed in the barracks. Despite the title, there’s nothing about the thumbnail image that suggests anything different than what he’s seen thus far - just a still frame of a ruined New York street. His thumb hovers over the screen for a moment, wondering if this is going to be yet another useless rehash of other footage with a so-called “clickbait” title. It probably is. There’s no way...</p><p>Steve clicks on it anyway.</p><p>It starts out much the same as the others have, with shouting, the sound of Chitauri laser fire, and crumbling, cracking metal and stone. The person behind the camera is running, their panicked breathing almost drowning out all other sounds in the video. Steve thinks he recognizes 5th Ave, or what currently remains of it, in the blurry, unfocused panning of the camera. </p><p><em>“Come on!”</em> the person behind the camera gasps. The view swings, and Steve can see them half-dragging a panicking friend beside them. <em>“Come on!”</em></p><p>
  <em>“This way!”</em>
</p><p>The voice is muffled behind the cacophony of war, but it still makes Steve jolt because he <em>recognizes it</em>, raspier, rougher than in his memories, but still unmistakeable.</p><p>The camera swings around and that is <em>Dum-Dum Dugan</em> beckoning them towards a tall stone gate. The person filming has obviously frozen, because the camera focuses and Steve can take in his old friend, white-haired and worn, but still striding across the gate’s threshold with a wicked looking shotgun in his hands.</p><p>
  <em>“This way, let’s move!”</em>
</p><p>The video turns into a blur of desperate sprinting for the gate and the house beyond, the grand, ostentatious Stark Manor that Steve hasn’t been brave enough to visit yet. Shrieks and gunfire fill Steve’s small room and he hurries to lower the volume with trembling hands. The runners make it to the manor doors, beckoned by the blurry forms of Monty and Gabe. The camera spins wildly, just in time to follow Dernier and the devilish gleam in his eyes as he storms past. His movements are slower with age, but still sure as he strides across the garden and hurls something towards the approaching Chitauri with a shout.</p><p>The explosions start a moment later, and the person holding the camera retreats inside the mansion with a barely intelligible, <em>“Holy shit-!”</em></p><p>The footage ends as the person is ushered inside among a crowd of other refugees from the battle. There are glimpses of Peggy and Howard among the shifting view as people huddle in the safety of the Stark Manor. He can hear their voices above the commotion, like something straight out of a memory.</p><p>
  <em>“Maria, my dear, let’s get you in the safe room with the others-- Peg, tell them I’ve got two more coming up the East side!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Gentlemen, I want those aliens off this street and running to their mothers!”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Carter, I’ve got a group of five civilians heading your way!”</em>
</p><p>The video cuts off abruptly, and Steve’s room is silent once again.</p><p>Steve breathes heavily, feeling like he’s run across the city at top speed. His heart <em>aches</em> just looking at their faces. He rewinds the video and starts again, and again, and again, eyes glued to each of their movements, seeing the friends he’d left behind in Europe in every second of it. But there’s something else here, too. He sees all of the time lost between them, in all the ways that they mesh together even more acutely than they had during the war. Steve sees all the years they’ve fought without him.</p><p>It feels like he’s mourning them even while they’re still <em>here</em>. Which is pathetic, really, because they’re right here in New York-- they were <em>here</em> during the battle. Are they still here, he wonders?</p><p>He taps at his phone and brings it to his ear, his eyes closed against the swell of bone-deep exhaustion rising in his lungs. After a few rings, he’s greeted with a soft: <em>“Steve?”</em></p><p>He sucks in a slow breath. “Peggy. Hi.”</p><p>
  <em>“Is everything alright?”</em>
</p><p>“Of course. Yeah, hey. Did you know that you guys are on YouTube?” God, just saying the words make him sound like an imbecile. He rushes on, “Someone was filming during the battle. You guys… you guys were amazing, Peggy.”</p><p>
  <em>‘I wish I was there. I wish it could have been us.’</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Steve…”</em>
</p><p>“Is anyone hurt?”</p><p>
  <em>“No, no. Maria’s exhausted. Her heart, the poor woman. And Dugan pulled a muscle while bracing for the recoil. I warned him about that shotgun. But otherwise we’re all alright. Are you alright? It seems like SHIELD is keeping all of you busy, darling.”</em>
</p><p>“I’m… fine.” Steve grimaces and clears his throat to try again. “I’m fine. Took a bit of a beating, and my apartment is practically rubble. But hey, at least I’m not going to suddenly wake up another seventy years in the future, right?” At least, not outside of his own nightmares. “And I can handle SHIELD.”</p><p>
  <em>“I don’t doubt. But what of your other friends?”</em>
</p><p>“They…” He thinks of how Barton’s eyes jump to the shadows whenever he sees the agent among the rescue volunteers. Or the brittle set of Thor’s jaw as he throws around rubble like it’s nothing, like he’s got something to prove. Or Stark - god, Stark had a damn <em>heart attack</em> after the battle and just went right back to work. They survived, but are <em>they</em> handling it? Does Steve even have the right to ask? They aren’t friends; they could barely scrape together being teammates long enough to neutralize an alien threat.</p><p>But with some work… with some <em>effort</em>… couldn’t they be?</p><p>
  <em>“Steve?”</em>
</p><p>“Is everyone still in town?” he asks instead. </p><p>That’s how he finds himself standing at the gates of Howard’s 5th Ave mansion a few hours later. The gates are thrown wide open, the gardens occupied by rows and rows of Stark Industries tents, a popup base of operation with people rushing across the previously meticulous lawn. Steve has to stop himself from hunching his shoulders as he walks up the grand, now blast-scorched path towards the house. Are the eyes that he feels on him only in his imagination? Or the quiet that follows in his wake?</p><p>It’s easier when he’s in uniform - easier to hide behind the confidence of <em>Captain America</em>, even in this future’s too tight, inadequately armored version of it.</p><p>It takes everything he has not to tuck himself into the doorway and hide from view once he reaches the house. He presses the button beside the door and is greeted by a woman’s bubbly voice. <em>“Good afternoon, Stark Residence.” </em>Her accent echoes of Eastern Europe, bright and clear in Steve’s ears. And he falters for a moment.</p><p>“I’m here to see Mister Stark and Ms. Carter. They should be expecting me.”</p><p><em>“Oh, hello, Captain Rogers! Please come in. You are expected.” </em>The door clicks and swings open, allowing Steve to duck inside. He expects to find a housekeeper or assistant on the other side of it waiting to greet him, but instead only finds empty air. <em>“I will let Master Howard know that you’re here. It’s an honor to finally meet you, Captain!”</em></p><p>The voice chimes from above him, pulling Steve to an abrupt stop. The door slides shut behind him on its own. “Oh,” he says, peering around at the grand, empty foyer. “Does Howard have an artificial intelligence program in the house as well? Like JARVIS?”</p><p><em>“Yes sir!”</em> the voice, the AI, answers, somehow managing to beam with pride even without a physical form. <em>“I am ANA. The Young Sir programmed me to help his father and mother in their daily tasks.” </em>There’s the briefest of pauses, lifelike in its delicacy. Steve can imagine the subtle clearing of a throat that would come with it. <em>“Master Howard is currently on a business call. But if you’d like to wait in the parlor to your left, Captain, he will be with you momentarily. The Young Sir is currently chatting with Mistress Maria there.”</em></p><p>Steve is so caught up in the delightful realization that <em>the Young Sir</em> could only be referring to Tony Stark that it takes him a moment to register the rest of what the AI is telling him. He grimaces. “I don’t want to interrupt--”</p><p>“Rogers, get in here!” Stark’s voice bellows from the door to Steve’s left.</p><p>It’s followed swiftly by a soft, thin voice chiding, “Don’t shout, <em>tesoro</em>. It is a big house. Let ANA call him in.”</p><p>“The old man is probably hard of hearing. He needs all the help he can get.”</p><p>“<em>Antonio.</em>”</p><p>Steve hesitantly follows the sound of soft laughter into the parlor. Inside the airy, sunlit room, Maria Stark reclines on the loveseat, frail and drawn but no less regal. She’s impeccably put together with her thin cloud of white hair pulled into an elegant bun and her charcoal pantsuit immaculately pressed. She’s even wearing a string of pearls, exhausted as she clearly is. She looks every bit the benevolent, philanthropic matriarch that Steve had seen in the glamorous event photos on the internet.</p><p>Her son, on the other hand, looks like a scruffy little chick in comparison to her, a bit of soot smeared along his jawline, his previously sharp goatee just a little more grown in, and his hair just barely tamed, like he’d quickly combed his fingers through it and called it presentable. The slim blazer he’s thrown on does nothing to hide the frayed and dusty tank top under it.</p><p>“Stark,” Steve greets as the man climbs to his feet. He nudges a pillow behind his mother’s back as he does, that plastic grin flickering into something genuine under her gaze before it snaps back into place. “You’ve been out in the trenches?”</p><p>Stark gestures shamelessly at his clothes. “It’s better to keep busy,” he says lightly. He holds his hand out for Steve to take and it feels… <em>inadequate</em> somehow, to simply shake hands with the man who had saved his life more times than Steve can count. The same man he watched tumble from a hole in the sky only moments after Steve had agonizingly pronounced him too far gone to save. This close, he can see that Stark looks pale, that his movements are a little slower, and the way his breath catches as if he’s favoring an injury to his ribs.</p><p>Steve’s eyes dart down to the arc reactor, a cool blue glow from under his shirt. God, the man had a <em>heart attack</em> just days ago.</p><p>“Please tell her she’s pretty,” Stark is leaning in to stage whisper. “She got herself all dressed up when she heard you were coming.”</p><p>“Snitch,” Maria Stark mutters from across the parlor. </p><p>Stark lets go of Steve’s hand and turns with a flourish. “You should be resting! You withstood an alien attack in your 80s. I think that qualifies you for the superhero title. You keep that up and I’ll be out of the job.”</p><p>“Anthony Edward Stark, do not mention my age to guests, you rude boy!”</p><p>Stark tosses a knowing smirk his way, the familiarity in it startling. Steve is beckoned over to the sitting area before he can marvel over it, where he quickly offers Maria his hand to keep her from getting up.</p><p>“It’s an honor to finally meet you, Captain Rogers,” she says gently.</p><p>“The honor’s all mine, ma’am.”</p><p>The Stark matriarch blushes delicately, prompting her son to roll his eyes. “Don’t you turn on the All-American Boy charm, Cap. That’s my mother.”</p><p>With a placid expression, Maria gingerly leans towards Stark and swats at his shoulder. Ignoring Stark’s dramatic sputtering, Steve fights back a grin. “I didn’t mean to intrude on your time with your son, Missus Stark. Your AI said that Howard was taking a call.”</p><p>“Ah yes, I heard him as I came down, talking with that slimy brute of a businessman. Keeps attempting to buy the house from us, no matter how many times we tell him it’s not for sale. I think Howard is keeping the house from his grasp out of spite now.” Maria sighs, smoothing her trousers of imaginary wrinkles. “He should be finished soon, Captain. How are you faring after the battle?”</p><p>Steve fixes a practiced smile onto his face, giving some vague answer about moving into the SHIELD barracks in lieu of his destroyed apartment and not really hearing any of his own words. It’s easier to tune out this part of the conversation, to let his responses go rote, than it is to think about whatever the hell he’s going to do next. In the plush, sprawling armchair beside her, Stark seems to fidget. It’s an almost undetectable movement, the twitch of Stark’s fingers against the arm of the chair, and if this were their first, or even their third meeting, Steve would assume Stark is growing bored of their small talk. But now Steve can recognize the thoughts passing in rapid succession over Stark’s face - the man wants to say something, and is playing a game of mental chess several moves ahead of the rest of them to find a way to say it. </p><p>“Has Tony told you about his plans for his building?” Maria questions, somehow sticking a perilous conversational leap that frankly Steve is in awe of. They’d been talking about life in the SHIELD barracks and Steve’s experience living out of an army pack, how had they ended up here?</p><p>And there’s an entirely different dance of emotions going across Stark’s face now. Steve’s brows arch. “No?”</p><p>Maria smiles. “It’s a wonderful idea, really.”</p><p>At this, if Steve isn’t mistaken, Stark actually looks embarrassed. “Really? You’re doing this?” he says indignantly.</p><p>“He’s got plans for all those empty floors, you know. He’s put so much work into them for him and all of your friends--”</p><p>“Would you look at that, Dad sure is taking his time with that phone call!” Stark launches himself up from the chair, a flurry of limbs and words that drags Steve up into the fray by a hand tugging at his arm. “I’ll just escort good old Captain Rogers here to the party before the rest of the Howlies stage a military operation.”</p><p>Steve blinks. “Um.” </p><p>Maria’s lips purse in a barely contained smile.</p><p>“You stay right there and rest up,” Stark is nearly babbling now, pointing at his mother knowingly. “I’ll be gone for twenty seconds, tops. Are you moving? You’re thinking of escaping aren’t you? I’ll get ANA on you if you even think about it!”</p><p>Just a little amused by this sudden turn, and more than a little confused as well, Steve smiles. “It was nice meeting you, Missus. Stark!” he calls to her just before Stark shuts the door behind them.</p><p>They stand back in the foyer for a moment, Steve watching as Stark’s bravado drops the moment the door is closed, heaving an impressive sigh. “So,” Steve begins, brows arching further as Stark jumps, “can I ask about that or should I just forget I saw anything?”</p><p>“Could you?”</p><p>“Nope.”</p><p>“In all those stories I heard growing up, they never said you were such a little shit, Rogers.”</p><p>“Now that I find hard to believe.” Steve grins, for the moment feeling lighter than he has in days. “So what’s this about that big ugly tower in Midtown?”</p><p>That gets the reaction Steve had been looking for, as Stark sputters and then laughs sharply. He gestures towards the stairs and they begin the climb together. “A third of the upper floors were damaged during the battle,” Stark explains after a moment. “It was a pretty good place for a fresh start.”</p><p>The smile slides off Steve’s face. “Did you lose anything? Anyone?”</p><p>“What? Nah, no, SI and its labs are all below that. Pepper’s office took a little bit of a beating, there were some windows broken, but everyone made it into safe rooms okay. The benefit of being in the eye of the storm, you know? It’s all cosmetic damage. SI was lucky.” <em>Unlike so many others</em>, drifts unsaid between them. Stark shrugs off the melancholy beat of silence. Before all this, Steve would have called it flippant. But now he’s not so sure. “Before, we thought about using the upper floors for regional department heads. Or for starting an internship program. Or a STEM youth camp? There were a lot of ideas on the table.”</p><p>“Okay…”</p><p>“Right. Uh. So after the whole alien invasion bullshit I was thinking-- It’s my curse, right? Ha. I’ve got all those empty floors and we’ve got a team. Most of us with nowhere to go, or stuck in SHIELD barracks in limbo. SHIELD can’t expect to be able to fund and supply a team like that, and after the shit the World Security Council pulled, I don’t really trust them that much anyway. So you know, why not, the Tower can withstand some assassins, spies, supersoldiers, gods, and a Hulk. What do you say?”</p><p>They’ve made it as far as the winding halls on the second floor. Steve’s keen senses pick up muffled laughter and voices somewhere deeper in the house, and his heart thuds against his ribs. “Say about what? You haven’t asked me anything yet,” Steve wonders aloud.</p><p>That fidgety expression dances across Stark’s face again. “The Tower, Cap, keep up.”</p><p>“Maybe I could keep up if you’d actually get to the point.” </p><p>“The Tower has a floor with your name on it if you want. Literally, if you really want that. I’ll do a gold embossed eagle holding a banner on the door if that’s what you want.”</p><p>Steve stares at him, for the moment forgetting all about the turmoil that seeing his friends - old, gray, having lived their entire lives without him - instills in him. “You actually--” His own voice sounds vaguely panicked. The look on Stark’s face matches it.</p><p>“Well, yeah--”</p><p>“After all of--”</p><p>“--I mean we were pretty good out there together. Fighting aliens. The whole Avenging thing. I’ll give it to Fury, it’s kind of catchy. Don’t tell him I said that. Look, I know we didn’t start off on the right foot--”</p><p>He winces at the reminder of their, frankly disastrous, first few hours knowing each other. “About that--”</p><p>“--but it’s all water under the bridge. Consider the air cleared. None of us were thinking clearly, thanks to Loki’s mind-controlling spirit stick. No harm, no foul, right? We all said things we didn’t mean.”</p><p>“Right. Stark...”</p><p>“It’s a big decision. Just think about it, get back to me. Or don’t--”</p><p>“Yes.” The single word seems to suck all the air out of the room. Stark visibly backtracks through their conversation, his eyes going wide. The genuine shock on his face startles Steve even more. It feels like he’d been teetering right on the precipice, standing on the crumbling edge that was his life before (<em>the laughter of friends who lived on without him, a world that is decades in the past, a life that can no longer be his)</em> and looking down into the open air of this new future and… Steve had just taken the leap. “Yeah,” he repeats, before the free-fall rush can leave him, “I’ll do it. How long until it’s ready?”</p><p>For a single, mystifying moment, Stark appears speechless. “You… will. You will? Great! If you come by the Tower this week, we can iron out the design for your floor.”</p><p>“Great,” Steve agrees, at a loss for words after his own impulsive decision. </p><p>A door opens before either of them can flounder in silence for long. It’s Morita that appears in the hall with them, his steps slow and deliberate as he leans on his cane. He stops when he senses the air between the two of them, a brow rising.</p><p>“Oh thank god,” Stark says. “Take him. If I have to be in the presence of all this Good Old American Earnestness for another second, I think I might combust.” He waves Steve away, spinning quickly on the spot before Morita lets out a rough scoff.</p><p>“Forgetting something before you run off, kid?” Stark pauses, doubles back, and throws an arm around Morita in a brief hug - or it would be if Morita hadn’t reeled the man closer. “Always nice seeing you, Junior. Keepin’ that mom of yours out of trouble today?”</p><p>“Best I can. She’s five seconds from going out that door to help with recovery efforts. Then this one,” Stark jerks his thumb in Steve’s direction, “showed up and I can’t keep both of them out of trouble. So he’s all yours.” </p><p>The pair of them watch as Stark bounds away back down the stairs. Once he’s safely out of sight, Morita tips his head in Steve’s direction. “He ask you about moving into that Tower of his? He’s been trying to work up the nerve to do it for days.”</p><p>Bemused by… everything that’s happened in the last few minutes, Steve huffs. “Stark? Not having the nerve for something?”</p><p>“A rare and special thing. It means a lot to him. You gonna do it?”</p><p>“I… yeah. I’ll give it a try. What’s the worst that could happen?” </p><p>Morita’s eyes sparkle as he grins, and in Steve’s mind it’s 1945 again and his friend is staring out at him from that lined face -- no, Morita is Morita. The two of them aren’t different people. It’s just Steve who can’t keep up. “Besides another alien invasion of New York?” Morita chuckles. And then he opens his arms to Steve. “Come here, Cap.”</p><p>They embrace, and despite the decades between them now, Morita is solid in Steve’s arms. Not the frail ghost that they all are in Steve’s darkest fears, that will turn to dust the moment he touches them. Morita is real. <em>Here</em>. And if he notices that Steve doesn’t let go right away, he doesn’t say anything. And Steve doesn’t mention the subtle little sniffle when they finally separate.</p><p>“It’s good to see you, Cap,” Morita says at last. “You look good.”</p><p>“You don’t look so bad yourself.” Steve grasps at his shoulder, following after his friend in the direction of the voices and laughter. “You make it through alright?” he adds, nodding at Morita’s cane and his strained gait.</p><p>“Ah. It’s fine. Just aggravated an old injury. It’s hell getting old, Cap. Count that shiny silver star of yours that you won’t have to deal with this.”</p><p>“We can do this another day, if--”</p><p>“Don’t even finish that sentence, Rogers. We’ve been looking forward to this since they pulled you out of the ice and we all lost our damn minds trying to make travel plans.” Morita picks up his pace, bafflingly spry for a man of ninety-three, and goes ahead of Steve to the final door on their trek. “You ready?”</p><p>Steve lets himself hesitate, but only for a moment. He nods. The voices inside go quiet as Morita opens the door. </p><p>Inside the room, the Howling Commandos silently climb to their feet. Steve stands in the doorway, searching each of their faces in turn. From Peggy’s enigmatic smile, to the almost shocked look on Monty’s face, to the tears shining in Gabe’s eyes. It’s Dum-Dum who moves first, a wide grin breaking out under his white mustache. He goes to spring across the room, to a chorus of protests that end in him faltering with a wince and placing a hand to his lower back. “You idiot,” Monty scoffs as Dernier helps him back into the chair. “Didn’t we tell you not to overdo it?”</p><p>“If you think an honest to god alien invasion is going to keep me down--”</p><p>“Alien invasion? It’s using that bloody shotgun that’s keeping you down, Dugan!”</p><p>Steve can’t help himself - he starts to laugh. It bursts out of him, and with it goes the breath that’s been lodged in his chest for so long that it felt like he could never breathe again. In that moment, Steve Rogers is free again. His friends are still here. They’ve grown older, but they haven’t left him behind. He goes to them and embraces them each in turn, letting them beckon him down into a seat at the table. And it feels like…</p><p>This place, this time is different. It’s new and sometimes terrifying and will take getting used to. But it was home once. And it can be that again.</p><p>
  <strong>END PART 1.</strong>
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